Most current multiprocessor file systems are designed to use multiple disks in parallel, using the high aggregate bandwidth to meet the growing I/O requirements of parallel scientific applications. Most multiprocessor file systems provide...

Autonomous damage detection in engineering structures is critically important as the demands placed upon those structures are increased. It has been well established that damage detection can be done through monitoring the modal frequencies of the...

Iron and zinc are essential metal micronutrients that most humans acquire from plant-based diets. Unfortunately, plants are not a good source of these micronutrients, so billions of people worldwide suffer from deficiencies of these two elements....

In closed-canopy forests, changes in the relative abundance of tree species due to major disturbance or to its absence are thought to be governed principally by differences among component species in the performance of juveniles. However, few...

We begin with a result on the refocussing of null geodesics in space-times. We show that all oriented refocussing 2-dimensional Lorentz manifolds are also strongly refocussing. We also introduce a theory of virtual Legendrian knots. We show that...

Visual searches for a conjunction of features (e.g., a particular combination of color and shape) are ordinarily slow and difficult. However, search efficiency for a particular conjunction can improve dramatically within a few hundred practice...

I investigate the kinematics and space densities of the local cataclysmic variable (CV) population. CVs are close binary star systems composed of a white dwarf that accretes matter from a less compact companion star in Roche lobe overflow....

This research has established feasibility of surface temperature characterization using ruby fluorescence. Study was performed in pin-on-disk geometry, with balls made of different plastics sliding against the sapphire disk. Fluorescence signal was...

The main research objective of this thesis is to address distributed target tracking for mobile sensor networks. Based on real-life limitations, we are particularly interested in mobile sensors with Limited Sensing Range (LSR). There are three...

We consider a problem of information overload: the conflict between vast amounts of data available in electronic form and inadequate tools for finding relevant information. To alleviate this problem we look at the information organization:...

This thesis considers the two special sensor networks for future sensor network design: mobile sensor networks and hybrid network of sensors and robots. To investigate two types of networks, we abstract two most important aspects that are ingrained...

Sorting very large datasets is a key subroutine in almost any application that is built on top of a large database. Two ways to sort out-of-core data dominate the literature: merging-based algorithms and partitioning-based algorithms. Within these...

Goldman and Turaev constructed a Lie bialgebra structure on the free Z-module generated by free homotopy classes of loops on an oriented surface. Turaev conjectured that the cobracket of A is zero if and only if A is a power of a simple class. Chas...

As the visual effect and movie industries are striving for realism and high fidelity images, physically based lighting, global illumination, realistic materials, and highly tessellated geometry are gradually accepted and used in movie and game...

For many scientific applications, the data set cannot entirely fit in main memory. The data must reside out-of-core, i.e., on parallel disks. For many basic data-movement operations such as permuting, if the programmer does not design efficient...

To understand how the circadian clock can temporally organize a cell, the biochemical characterization of a clock protein, FRQ, was initiated in Neurospora crassa using immunochemical techniques. FRQ accumulated in constant light to maximum levels...

High-performance computing increasingly occurs on computational grids composed of heterogeneous and geographically distributed systems of computers, networks, and storage devices that collectively act as a single virtual computer. A key challenge...

Vibrio cholerae is the etiologic agent of cholera in humans. Intestinal colonization occurs via ingestion of contaminated food and water and results in symptoms that include the production of the characteristic rice water stool, vomiting, and...

Bradyrhizobium japonicum forms a nitrogen-fixing symbiosis with soybean. Signaling events, such as production of flavonoids and Nod factor, initiate the interaction, leading to formation of specialized root organs called nodules. A B. japonicum...

In this thesis we study the properties of time-dependent, nontopological configurations and their effect on the macroscopic properties of a system described by a nonlinear field theory. These structures seem to be ubiquitous in relativistic field...

All cells must organize their cytoplasm in order to carry out functions properly and survive in different environments, and the requirement for organization is increased in large, multinucleate cells. It has long been known that membrane-bound...

How the genome is shaped directly influences how it is expressed. In fact, the genome is organized at many different levels, each imparting specific regulation over transcription. Fundamental principles regulating genome organization are poorly...

Sea ice appears to form an impenetrable boundary at the ocean-atmosphere interface in polar regions, yet in fact its porous structure provides critical pathways for the exchange of heat, gases, salts, and other chemical species impacting the global...